My daughter is paralyzed with the decision-making process, largely due to campuses not allowing indoor tours or admitted student days.
She is considering these three small schools. Major as Psychology, but truly undecided. Costs are similar.
Butler University–she loves the size, Big East basketball, robust exploratory program. Concerns about academic rigor, food, alumni base.
Rollins College–she loves the locale, nice dorms and food, good selection of majors. Concerns about number of commuter students, stereotype of rich kids, and distance from home.
Denison University–loves the campus, diversity of student body, quality of teaching, students seem very engaged in class. Concerns about over-the-top COVID lockdown policies this year, complaints on Niche that school is boring, dorms sound bad.
I appreciate any input; thanks in advance.
I don’t think there are a lot of commuter students at Rollins. It’s a pretty expensive school, so students needing to save money and live at home have a lot of cheaper options (especially the public schools).
I love Rollins and the town but if I wanted big sports, I’d go with Butler.
I can’t imagine that classrooms different that much, so if you like the rest of the school, you’ll probably like the classrooms too.
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CollegeData says 57% of the students at Rollins live in on-campus housing, so that’s what may present the opinion that there are a lot of commuter students. However, there are two ways that many students can live off campus: 1) it’s a commuter school; or 2) there’s not enough housing for everyone and/or nearby housing is cheaper than the dorms, so upperclassmen move off campus to nearby apartments. Technically they are living “off-campus,” but these apartments may be walking distance or a very short driving distance to campus. For an example, Penn State also says only 36% of their students live on-campus, but that’s because upperclassmen usually secure one of the many apartments nearby campus. But they’re certainly not largely students who are living at home and commuting to school. The campus culture is still thriving.
I’d be skeptical of putting too much weight on Niche; it’s useful information, but she should also remember that only a small subset of students actually rate things on Niche, and students are more motivated to fill those out when they have negative experiences. College is largely what you make it - any place with hundreds or thousands of young adults together should have some opportunities for fun and interesting things. I’m not quite sure what “over-the-top” lockdown policies mean.
Just from a cursory look, her cons on Denison seem the weakest (hopefully COVID-19 lockdown policies won’t be as much of an issue from 2022 on; see the above point on Niche; and “dorms sound bad” is super vague - they’re probably just fine). The pros also sound the strongest and most likely to actually impact her day-to-day experience.
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My son is a sophomore at Denison, planning to include Psych as one half of a double major. He has really enjoyed all aspects of his time at Denison. He is a varsity athlete, so that has helped to keep him busy, but I have never heard the complaint that Denison is boring. There is a lot going on, both academically and otherwise. We’ve been happy with the school’s COVID policies, which have kept the outbreaks on campus to a minimum, and they haven’t seemed “over-the-top” to me relative to what I’ve read on here about other schools or what other schools in the area are doing. Kenyon and Oberlin, for example, both seem to have more restrictive policies. Denison has been surveying the students regularly during the pandemic for complaints and suggestions. In the fall, things were pretty tight, with many classes remote and limitations on guests in dorm rooms, etc., and the students did complain about the lack of social interaction, so this semester there has been a big push in that direction. It’s not so easy to encourage people to socialize outside in Central Ohio in the winter, but there are heated tents, fire pits, a skating rink, food trucks on the weekend, etc. The rules on indoor gatherings have also been gradually relaxed and activities like sports and performing arts are ongoing, albeit with some restrictions. It has been my impression that, by involving the students in the process and being responsive, the school has gotten pretty good buy-in for its policies. As to the dorms, the school is currently carrying out a multi-year renovation plan, although that’s been slowed now by COVID. As things stand, the Denison dorms are more or less like what we saw at other schools on our college tours, and there are various options. The upperclass apartments in particular are very nice, including the brand-new Silverstein apartments for seniors. As a first-year, my son elected to live in one of the two big freshmen dorms and ended up on the top floor of Shorney, which is what people are usually referring to when they talk about bad dorms at Denison. It was big, noisy and, on the top floor, hot, but living in Shorney enabled my son to meet a lot of people and get integrated very quickly and he never regretted his choice. There are other smaller dorms that are also open to first-years who prefer a different atmosphere. This year, my son is in a much smaller building, an elegant older building off the main campus. He wouldn’t have selected that, but it was the only place he could get a triple with his roommates, and now he loves it and is torn between staying in that area of campus or moving to East Quad, where most of the juniors are. There is a parents FB page that has a lot of photos of different dorm rooms. I am not sure whether parents of accepted students are able to join, but you might want to take a look. That FB group has been a terrific resource for me, and the parents group is incredibly helpful and supportive, an unusually nice group - we live far away from Denison, and it’s been great to know that help will be there if we ever need it.
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Thank you all for your comments! Much appreciated. 
My daughter is sophomore at Denison. She went to college as an undeclared major. She’s now declared as pre-med (bio major, chem & Spanish minors). There were many things about Denison that really appealed to her. The first was the strong academics which is important to her as she is not really into sports or sororities. Although many of her friends participate in both. She didn’t find the Denison’s covid protocols to be overly intrusive and has continued to be actively involved on campus. Also being near Columbus means she has access to a major city if she wants/needs it. She also has a few friends from New Jersey that attend OSU so if she wanted that big college experience in terms of parties / sports she can go there. She has only gone there on her own once in almost 2 years because she loves Denison and finds plenty to do on campus. The real question for your daughter is does she want a true LAC experience? Mine couldn’t be happier with her decision.
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I live in Central Florida and received my MBA from Rollins and my daughter graduated a few years ago. To your question on the number of students that commute…I believe a small percentage of full time undergrad students commute. A lot if kids rent homes or apartments throughout the neighborhoods close to the school. Rollins just upgraded and added some “resort quality” dorms and I believe over the next few years they are going to require students to live in the dorms.
My DD got an excellent education at Rollins and enjoyed all that Winter Park has to offer.
Good luck with your decision.